


gonna make you have awful luck

by sungabraverday



Category: Curse Workers Series - Holly Black, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Curse Workers Fusion, Gen, Not Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 16:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/sungabraverday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosette is a curse worker. Fantine is not. She tries to do the best thing for her daughter, but it's not going to turn out well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gonna make you have awful luck

Fantine sat with Cosette in her lap at the doctor's office, waiting for the results of the girl's hyperbathygammic test. She was such a sweet thing, with chestnut curls and and bright blue eyes. She took after her father that way.

Fantine only wondered if she took after him in other ways too. He had been a worker - had worked her, even - and then he had left her, abandoned to the mercies of a system that gave her no recourse and blamed her for falling into an emotion worker's trap.

She had loved him, and then he had worked her to love him, and those were two totally different things. Fantine knew that, and had felt it herself. She knew she should probably hate him for what he had done to her, but she couldn't, not fully. He had given her a daughter, and Fantine loved Cosette with all her heart. She just had to do the right thing for her, and to do that, she had to know.

The doctor came into the waiting room with a folder and a frown. "Fantine and Euphrasie, if you'd come with me," was all he said, but Fantine knew immediately what the answer.

Once they were seated in plush comfortable chairs, door closed firmly behind them, he said the fateful words. "The test results are conclusive, and Euphrasie is hyperbathygammic."

Cosette looked up at her mother with wide eyes and asked, "Mommy, does that make me special?"

Fantine clutched her daughter's gloved hands with one of her own, and stroked her hair with her free hand. "You will always be special, my little lark," she said, "but this makes you very special indeed."

The doctor looked uncomfortable, but Fantine held him for a moment in a withering glance that dared him to say anything to the contrary in front of her daughter. He shifted in his seat before plowing on. "We're seeking to understand the nature of this phenomenon more fully. If I may, of her family how many others are hyperbathygammic?"

"Her father was," Fantine said, voice soft, "an emotion worker. I never met his family. None of my relations are."

"Thank you," the doctor said, and stood abruptly. He ushered them out, leaving Cosette a wide berth. He smiled when they left the office. It wasn't the friendly kind of smile - it was the kind that's relieved that you're gone.

* * *

Fantine took Cosette to the nearest worker town, a place called Little Gloverton, down by the shore. She wandered there, with her daughter's hand in hers, looking for something. She wasn't quite sure what she needed to see, but she knew what she was looking for - a nice worker family, one she could trust with her daughter.

At the end of the town she passed a hotel, slightly weather-worn but not yet run down. Outside, two girls were chasing each other around, laughing and shrieking. Cosette watched them tentatively, glancing up at her mother for approval. Fantine let her go, and Cosette ran to join them.

Fantine smiled adoringly and looked for their mother. She stood at the door of the hotel, a stout woman, the days in which she had been beautiful long gone. Fantine suspected it was a loss to blowback, which explained the sour expression on her face as well. Fantine approached her cautiously. "Hello," she asked, "are those your daughters?"

The woman looked at her as if she had grown a second head before nodding abruptly. "The two in the field? Yes, and I've a son, asleep in his cot. What do you want?"

Fantine took a steadying breath. "A favour, if you'd listen," and began to explain.

* * *

On the field, Éponine and Azelma ran in circles until Cosette cut in. "Can I join you?" she asked, politely as she'd learned she must always be.

The other girls eyed her warily. "You a worker too?" Azelma asked eventually.

Cosette beamed. "I am! I don't know what kind, but I know I am." The two girls seemed satisfied with this because they fell sprawling to the ground, Éponine pulling Cosette down with them.

"Cool. We're playing workers. All you gotta do is curse things. Like, I'm a luck worker, so I'm gonna make you have awful luck." Her hand stuck out and touched Cosette's arm, the bare skin making her flinch. She hadn't seen Éponine remove her glove. But she didn't feel her insides being reworked or anything so she figured she wasn't actually cursed. She thought you'd be able to tell. Eponine only laughed.

"I'm a transformation worker," Azelma announced to the sky. Éponine laughed again, this time more mocking, her glove forgotten on the ground.

"No you ain't. You ain't any kind of worker. You just wish you were. None of us Thénardiers are. But we do pretty well just the same." Their game resumed, but with some of the spark drained out of it - it was only pretend.

Their mothers appeared once more. Fantine was carrying Cosette's suitcase, and she handed Mrs. Thenardier a tidy bundle of bills. "Cosette," she called, and the girl came running back.

Fantine picked her up. "You're almost too big for this, my darling. I don't think I'll ever get to do this again, I think."

Cosette pouted. "Why not, Mommy?"

"Well, my dear. I have something to ask you. How you you like to stay with these lovely people?"

She grinned. "I'd like that. They're really nice."

"Good, I'm glad," Fantine said, and lowered Cosette back to the ground. She smiled, and brushed away a tear in the corner of her eye, the wetness darkening the leather of her gloves.

"They'll take good care of you. And I'll write often, I promise."

"I'll be good for them, Mommy, I promise."

Fantine hugged her daughter and kissed her forehead. "Remember I love you, Cosette."

"I know. I love you too, Mommy."

The tears were threatening to fall far too much, so Fantine let Cosette go, and stood to thank Mrs. Thénardier once more. "For all your help and your compassion, I thank you," she repeated, shaking her hand. God bless." And before her daughter saw her crying, Fantine headed quickly back to where she had left her car.

But Fantine had made one major miscalculation in leaving her daughter with the Thénardiers. Instead of entrusting her daughter to a worker family to grow and nurture her skills - itself a major risk, given how thoroughly involved in crime so many of them were - she'd picked just plain old crooks. A worker town may be mostly workers, but it's the nature of the game - it attracts the unscrupulous too.


End file.
